2006 Journalism Awards

MIAMI, Florida (July 28, 2006)The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today announced that it is awarding its Grand Prize for Press Freedom for 2006 to a disappeared Mexican journalist, Alfredo Jiménez Mota from the Hermosillo daily newspaper El Imparcial. The award will be presented to his family members in October.

As a consequence of publication in April 2005 of the series Mafia in Sonora State, in which he exposed links between drug traffickers and local police, Jiménez Mota was kidnapped and his whereabouts remain unknown since then. The series was not only a testimony to major, high-quality reporting but also reflects the social commitment and personal courage of its author, the IAPA said.

More than 100 publications throughout Mexico and the Southwest United States simultaneously published a report on Jiménez Motas disappearance.

The drug traffickers have been the leading factor in the murder of journalists in the recent history of Mexico, declared Gustavo Mohme of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, co-chairman of the IAPAs Awards Committee. By giving the award for Jiménez Motas work as a journalist and his moral values we are defending freedom of the press and honoring his courage.

The Awards Committee also selected winners in another nine categories. The awards are to be presented during the IAPAs 62nd General Assembly, to be held in Mexico City September 29 to October 2. They consist of a cash prize of $2,000 and plaques and diplomas.

We are delighted  we received hundreds of entries of the highest quality, said Awards Committee Co-Chairman José Santiago Healy, of the Diario San Diego newspaper, San Diego, California. Every year the IAPA awards gain in prestige and reflect the important role played by the press in the Americas.

Frontera sin Control (A Border with No Control), published in the newspaper La Prensa of Panama, for revealing the differences in border and entry controls between Panama and Costa Rica and the worrisome human, social and legal consequences brought to light by the investigative reporting, with its excellent deployment of narrative resources and photographic testimony.

To Bruno Menezes, Erika de Castro and Sergio Ramalho for the series Infancia Manipulada (Manipulated Childhood), published in O Dia, Brazil, exposing various kinds of abuse and manipulation of poor children in Brazil and sparking an outcry from people wanting to come to their aid.

To the reporting team of the daily Panorama of Maracaibo, Venezuela, for their comprehensive, continuous and detailed coverage of an aircraft crash in Machiques in which 160 people died, which employed various journalistic tools, such as photography, infographics and features, carried out at both the crash scene and at a number of locations impacted by the accident  all of this in just a short period of time.

Honorable Mention to Claudio Ribeiro, Dimitri Túlio, Luis Enrique Campos, Flavio Pinto and the news team of O Povo of Brazil for the series Banco Central: O Assalto de Século (Central Bank: The Raid of the Century), for the quality, follow-up and depth of coverage and use of graphics.

To Nelly Luna Amancio for the series Contaminación Ambiental en Lima Metropolitana Aire-Agua-Ruido (Environmental Pollution in Metropolitan Lima: Air-Water-Noise), published in El Comercio, Lima, Peru, for handling comprehensively and with investigative intensity a problem of great social sensitivity and impact on the community, using a variety of news sources and graphics resources.

Honorable Mention to Jorge Morales and Francisco Reza of El Imparcial, Hermosillo, Mexico, for the series of articles Prestagate, showing great perseverance and tenacity in the quest for the truth.

To Maurice Cohn Band for the series Explosive Legacy: Land Mines in Latin America, published in The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, for capturing images that reflect a comprehensive though rarely seen view of the consequences of war in the Americas.

9. IAPA Cartoon Award, sponsored by El Tiempo, Bogotá, Colombia:

To Cristian Dzwonik (Nik) for cartoons published in La Nación of Argentina dealing with politically incisive topics in an original way and with excellent use of color.

To Ricardo León Ramírez Pérez and Juan Esteban Ugarriza Uribe for the series El Final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial (The End of World War II), published in El Colombiano, Colombia, for its comprehensive, informative and innovative nature.

To Tom Knudson and Héctor Amezcua for the series The Pineros: Men of Pines, published in The Sacramento Bee, California, an investigation that disclosed mistreatment of Latin workers toiling in privately-owned and federal forests in the United States.